And yes, as you can see I’m still in “cardigan-modus”: after making a few kids-cardi’s, I decided I wanted one in the same style for myself, and so I started making my own design. I bought a kilo of merino in one of my favourite colours and sat down to watch it for a while, so pretty! But in the end, I managed to start and finish this long cardigan which is a pleasure to wear and after all those hours of crochet I’m still in love with the colour…….at work I bought the buttons, I had my eye on these for a while, et voila!

I was writing and crocheting at the same time on this, and at the moment I’m testing this pattern in a different yarn. As soon as I’m happy with the result, I will be selling the pattern in my Etsy shop, so watch this space!

Before I crocheted the soft off-white cardigan featuring inthis previous blogpost, I made a trial version, so I could see how the sizes would turn out. I used only 1 large skein of Bravo Baby in Coral. I got the skein from a discount box at Veritas, I was only 1 euro I think. (the buttons turned out to be a much bigger investment in the end :-)) The cardi turned out a bit on the small side for Bloem, because the yarn I used was far thinner than the worsted weight yarn in the pattern. As I was sewing on the buttons at work, one of my colleagues (who has a 4-year old daughter) was charmed by the cardigan, and since her daughter would look far better in this colour, I gave it to her and I finally got my hands on that lovely large skein of softness…..

In November, my sweet colleague gave birth to a perfectly beautiful girl, so I could finally start making a baby-gift. I choose a bright white ensemble: a crochet cardigan and a tiny pair of trousers. Both patterns are ByClaire, the CrochetPattern is available for free at her website (it was originally a pullover but I made some adjustments) and the trousers are in her book “Klein Haakgeluk”. These small garments work up really quick and I hope the little princess will like her new outfit……..

For ages I’ve been admiring the patterns by Heid May on The Velvet Acorn and when Bloem asked me to make her a long crochet cardigan, I bought the Cairbre Cardigan pattern through Ravelry. The lovely soft and fluffy yarn is “Hush” by Veritas and the whole thing was finished in 5 evenings on a 6mm hook.. What an excellent pattern this is, easy to follow, and works up very fast. The buttons are also by Veritas and very much Bloem’s taste and style.

My mom asked me to make her a scarf to go with her new camel-coloured winter coat. She picked this gorgeous ice-blue yarn: Corafine by On Line. I picked the pattern: good old Southbay, but in the rectangular version this time. The border consists of 2 rows of HDC’s, and it took almost 6 skeins of this lovely Merino-Acrylic yarn. As soon as the scarf was finished, the cold set in: we were treated to some beautiful frozen mornings, and making pretty pictures couldn’t have been easier!

I had this lovely Primacotton yarn lying around for a while, and then it hit me: the Maia Shawl pattern I had bought last year, and made only once (see my Back to Black Version of it) was going to be very pretty in this rather chunky, misty green yarn. For the ivory-white edge I used a merino-cotton blend called “Giggles”.

I made a crochet summer beach top in Catania cotton yarn to feature as an example piece at work. One of our mannequin dolls in the shop is wearing it now. These cheerful colours make it feel like summertime already. The pattern is quick, easy and can be found (in Dutch) HERE. I added the tassels as an extra because I found that even for a very slim mannequin it was showing a lot of (belly)skin :-)))

It’s been quite a while since my last blog post, for which there are three reasons: first of all, since February I became a working mum, for the first time since Bloem was born (and enjoying every hour of it!), secondly, in a moment of us not paying attention, Nobel decided to crash on our tiled floor with my camera in his hands (which hurt the camera more than it did him), so not many blog- worthy pics were taken since that moment :-). And last but not least, my newest (enormous) crochet project:

An actual full-size blanket of Maybelleflower Squares. I never imagined that I would be able to finish such a large blanket, but I did! It took me about 1,5 month, which I think is not too bad, considering it’s mostly crocheting in the evenings, these days.

I was very inspired by this blog: The Patchwork Heart, or rather this bloggers’ Instagram account. She makes the most amazing blankets in an insane pace, and finally I couldn’t bear it any longer: I wanted one, too! I found the gorgeous granny square pattern on the My Rose Valley blog. This lady made the well-known maybelle flower into a square and shares it for free on her blog.And unbelievably: even after 117 times of making this pattern, it still didn’t tire me! I made mono-coloures squares using 5 gorgeous colours of an acrylic yarn called Apilou by Veritas, and used the same yarn in Ecru as my joining colour. Finally I added a lacy border and my lovely, soft and warm blanket was finished!